At the end of the Alliance conference in San Antonio, I took over the role of Vice President for External Relations from our dear friend Hugh Barnes, who recently retired from the University of Cambridge. Hugh has been an extraordinary in this role for two years, re-imagining how HEUG thinks about our global community. We will miss him and continue to benefit as a user group from the work he did during his tenure. Thank you Hugh!
Even though I have worked with Hugh for two years, I had a lot of learning to do about what exactly the HEUG VP for External Relations is supposed to do. As I learned, I started to write about some of the areas I will be focusing on. I'll be writing on these and others in detail as we go, but here are some broad strokes:
Strategic Partnerships
Collaborating with other Oracle user groups is a critical responsibility of our external relations initiative. HEUG is one of a group of Oracle user groups included in the International Oracle User Community (IOUC) -- we are the only industry vertical, purely customer-driven user group in this community. I'll be writing about these collaborative relationships this year to keep you informed and provide opportunities for advocacy. In addition to working with other user groups, I will be maintaining our relationships with other industry associations and (following the lead of our new Vendor Council) other partners.
Global Community
HEUG is made up of over 18,000 individuals from over 900 campuses in 28 countries. We are truly a global organization. I will be picking up the work that Hugh has done over the past two years, supporting the growth of our user communities around the world. One key initiative we have been planning since last year is an international advisory group liaison pilot, which will provide an opportunity for our advisory groups to reach all of our communities around the world.
Public, Media, and Analyst Relations
It sometimes surprises us how much of an impact HEUG can and does make. We are seeing more and more requests for interviews with the media, with analysts, and with public relations representatives from vendors. We are pleased by our growing profile as it creates value for our membership. These activities provide opportunities to advocate for our members and our industry while gathering information needed to better educate our entire organization. I will be working on making sure that we create and seize these opportunities.
Those are broad strokes. I'll continue to write about these activities and welcome feedback from all of our members. Please feel free to leave a comment here or send me a note to let me know what you think. Thanks!